She was surrounded by darkness, and even trying to look down only made this point more obvious, darkness everywhere, she couldn't even see her own hands... And couldn't feel them either. She felt as if she had lost something important, something that was important...What was it?
Trying to think back on it she couldn't seem to remember, she only knew that she was floating in the void and couldn't feel nor see anything, she was tired...So tired...And the darkness was so comfortable...
"Are you enjoying yourself?" Asked a voice, male, deep, older.
She tried to search for it but didn't find it, it was the voice of someone older, aged and serious, but with a faint tone of mischievousness, like the voice of a grandparent playing a joke with some of his grandchildren.
"Where are you, who are you?" She asked to the void, trying to turn her head...But not quite achieving it...
Why?
She tried to touch her face but...Couldn't feel it, she couldn't even be sure her hands were moving...Did she have hands even? Did she have a head?
"Who am I? Who are [You]?" Asked back the voice.
Oh right, she had to start with introductions, that was what they had taught him in his Etiquette lessons...
Who was she?
"I'm... ■■■■■■■■■." She tried to say only for weird noises to come out of her mouth. "What?"
And after trying to process it she once again said "I'm ■■■■■■■■■■." But even trying to say it again nothing came.
"Are you sure? You said two different things there." Said the voice again.
She did?
Trying to recount it, somehow the second time had an extra character, "The ■ character isn't quite normal nor is it needed at the end, even if we liked how it made our name [Special]." The male voice said with a smirk on his face.
How did she know he had a smirk? Who was that man?
"I said my name and you understood it, so who are you?" She asked back to the voice, her voice had some snark on it, but she didn't mind it, the manner lessons never quite stuck to him anyway.
"I'm...The endpoint of a Scion, the fruit of a life full of strife..." Started recounting the older man's voice, "...I'm the single reason a world fell into crisis in my search for the [Forbidden truth]...The reason a world met its end...I'm..." His voice trailed off, full of regrets as if he was trying to find the right words.
"An Old Man that stuck his face in matters that he shouldn't." Came a second voice, this one of a man younger, not in his twilight years, but not quite young.
His was full of vigor and ambition, and somehow, she knew the older man had disappeared when this one came, "I'm here to try and help you in your time of need my lovely and [stupid] girl." Said the new voice.
He was annoying.
"And who are you supposed to be?" She asked back, "Do I need to say my name again?"
"Hah!" Laughed back this new person, "Nah, that isn't needed, [We] know who you are more than you do."
Somehow, that annoyed her quite deeply, who was this person? And the other one?
Also, he said We as if more people were around. But she couldn't see anything, she couldn't feel anything...She wasn't even sure how she was hearing them or speaking to them, she couldn't even feel her body!
Was she standing? On the floor? Wha....
"[Hey!]" Screamed the new voice while slapping her.
Rude!
The pain on her cheek stings quite deeply!
Who even slaps a girl?
Did he have no shame?!?
No wait...Pain?
"Snap out of it, don't think too deeply, just focus on [Here]." Said the new voice.
How...
She tried to fling her hand and slap herself but felt nothing, "How did you do that?" She asked, her voice filled with doubt and...Hope.
"What? Slap you?" Asked back with mirth this man. "Ain't you a kinky one."
Uuugh...Males.
"Didn't think we would turn into a M...Always thought we were more of a S, to be honest..." Mused the man.
"You know what I mean..."She snarked back at him, so rude.
"We always were good at the self-loathing and hurting thing...We were raised as slaves after all..." What?
She was a slave? She was raised as a slave? That...Didn't feel right...She didn't have memories of being a slave...No wait, she didn't have any memory!
How? When? What?
"[Focus ■■■■■■■■■!]" The thunderous voice of the man came.
"You missed a ■." She said, a joking tone in her voice.
"No, I didn't. You used the wrong name back then, you aren't ■■■■■■■■■■, not anymore anyway..."He answered back, somehow she could get the meaning of how that name was different. "You could if you wanted..." He laughed back at the end
"We are running out of time here." A third voice came, strangling the laugh of the man.
This one sounded...Younger, almost as old as she...How could she know their age?
"What is happening?" She asked, still trying to get her bearings.
These...People...Seemed to help her stabilize her mood, somehow she could feel herself being more...[Her].
"Your soul, your mind, and your body got separated." Said the male teen, she could feel his presence, she could smell him even.
He smelled like Oozone after a thunder struck down on a rainy night.
"Someone tried to take over your soul in a moment of weakness, so we severed the connection, our [Memories] are leaking back into the [Soulscape]." He said in a soft tone he felt...Like sadness, and defeat, the feeling she got out of him was of someone whose dreams were almost crushed but he still stuck to them in hopes of victory.
"Our memory? Are your memories, the memories of the previous man, and those of the old man merging with mine?" She wondered aloud.
That...Would be a problem, what was she supposed to do with memories of men?
She didn't want to know about their memories!
"Not quite..." Answered back the other teenager, "[We] aren't at that point, we could, of course, we could be one again...If you want to."
Was...was he hitting on her?
"I'm not... Why are you all so narcissistic?" Said a new voice, this one was quite high pitched, he sounded like a kid.
A kid who tried to put up a brave front but was...Scared?
"No, we aren't hitting on you." Said the voice of the new kid, he was a blonde kid with yellow eyes.
Wait, she can see!
A quick look down and...She couldn't see herself.
"Why can I see you, but not myself?" She asked the kid.
"I know who [I am]. And as such I can project myself this deep within the soul." He answered back, "Even if unstable." Added back the voice of the first person she spoke to.
And then, instead of a kid was the figure of an old man...Only in name, his gait was that of a soldier, his face even with some wrinkles on it was full of life, and while he had some white in his head, it was more yellowy silver than straight white.
Yeah, you aren't supposed to look that good in old age, how was someone almost two centuries old that well-preserved?
"Why thank you, I make a good effort to keep my good looks." Smirked the old man while tipping his imaginary hat.
Did...Did he read her thoughts?
"No, we can't read thoughts, but we keep some of the same traits, some things are too embedded into our [Soul]." Said the voice of the teenager to her left, she turned her attention there...
And sure enough, he looked around her age, but his eyes weren't yellow but...Blue?
The old man...what colors had been his eyes?
She tried to remember him, but she could only picture the face of the teenager, even though an old man had been there...
"Don't overwork your nonexistent brain." The kid spoke once more.
And looking back...The teenager was no more.
"What is happening?" She asked once more, hadn't she asked this before?
"Your life was in danger and we took the only option available..."Said the kid while summoning a blue screen.
In it was the image of a blonde girl with red eyes and black veins in her body speaking with the Teenager from before, she couldn't hear them speaking, but the face of the teenager told her enough.
He was being threatened...Behind him stood a series of cylinders, she [Knew] what they were and for whom. She knew that the old man had used the first cylinder to stave off time, to survive longer...To make sure everything was in order in...in...
"In our soul." Answered back the kid.
Right, he had been stabilizing her soul from the moment she was born...
"How do I know stuff about before I was born?" She asked back to the kid.
"We were there." Answered back the kid with a shrug.
"Of course, I was there! I was in my mother's belly! I'm asking how I know stuff I shouldn't know!" She was getting annoyed at this person.
"We are you." The kid said as if it was the most obvious thing.
"You are in secret a girl?" She said back in a deadpan tone, he was one ugly girl...Or a tomboy? He didn't look like a tomboy, usually, tomboys are cute. And he wasn't cute, at all.
"...No, I'm male, do you want to check?" He asked back.
"No thank you." She quickly said, so rude.
"What I mean is...Look, I was what you could refer to as...Someone blessed with an important mission. If you think in simpler terms...I was [Destinied] to do something." He started saying.
Was he bad in the head?
"I was born at the bottom of the trash can, less than a slave and more like expendable meat than human...But I got lucky, managed to climb the ranks, managed to prove I [Deserved better]." He said with fire in his eyes.
"I raised my stock, I stopped being [Slave 105] and earned [My Name] I wasn't just Alexander, I was [■■■■■■■■■■]!" He was really getting into it.
"You added one extra character there." She helpfully said. "I counted them Alexander and ■■■■■■■■■■ have different numbers of characters, one has nine and the other has ten."
He in turn only glared at her and answered "We like the extra S at the end, makes us different from the rabble." Yikes, ego much?
"Not relevant, we climbed, we fought...And then...We found out what made us special, there was an entity in our world...Something that wanted to [Grow] and it had [Choosen] us...It chose me." He summoned once more the blue screen and on it was...Another blue screen, this one seemed...Primitive.
While the one he summoned was well detailed and could pass up as a holopad, the one inside of it, the picture of that...Was like a crystal cut from a cave...Natural crystal turned into a mirror.
"It was thanks to this [Thing] blessing we could make the best of our situation, we...I...Was [Lucky]" Alexander(s) said.
"Hah? Like...You had good luck? That's it?" She was baffled, was this kid okay? Maybe he needed a nap or something?
"You don't understand...I was sent into the war...But was never wounded, no matter how grisly the fight was...I would never run out of bullets, and when I was in danger someone else would stumble in front of me, turning into a shield...If I was moved to another theatre...My previous one would be blown to kingdom come..." He grimaced while showing pictures of him in uniform fighting in a war..."I was [Really Lucky]" Alexanders said again.
"That's...convenient." Was all she could say, was that even possible?
That sounded more like some god was coddling him than anything.
"That is a good way to put it yes. I was protected by [Fate] and only needed to find what my mission was...It took me five minutes to find out what it was since the only thing special I had was my heritage." Alexanders moved his presentation to the next, the image of an eagle with a pergamine on his claws extending his wings as if it was flying...Or landing, hard to tell on a statue.
"Since our clan's mission was the keeping and preserving of knowledge, I climbed the ranks and turned it into profit, can't make bad investments if [Fate] wants me to succeed...So I built a conglomerate and stuck my name to it (Or my last name anyway)." And like that, the story showed the image of the adult blonde form of this kid, shaking hands with the president of the United...
"Wait, why do I know he is the president? That ain't mine...Actually, do I have one?" She asked, trying to remember...Somehow...She didn't quite have memories of a president, she remembered her father was more important than him...Was that the reason?
"Getting there," The kid said, "So...We built the conglomerate and studied the crystal...Then...I made a little itty bitty of ...[Misunderstanding]."
The presentation changed to the image of him cutting a part of a humongous purple crystal, he was dressed in a full scientist setting in a laboratory...That seemed nostalgic.
And then...The recording showed him getting cut by one of the crystal's shards and some of his blood dropping on it, "And so..." He started speaking.
" I WAS BORN!" Came the voice of a little girl, she was a blonde one with blue eyes like...Her?
"Oh Hello Alexa." She said without thinking, "...Why do I know her name?"
Was the first thing she said without even thinking about it, "That shard got contaminated with my genetic information, so the first thing we tried to do was build a body for it...We put our top geneticist to build the blueprint using me as the base..." Continued speaking Alexanders.
"Mama makes the best bodies!" The little girl said, "But mister pig wanted a weapon..."
"And our weapon's expert made a [Core] for a bioweapon since we did need some money to fund the thing," Alexanders said after it.
"So your...Mother? Made the body of a little girl...And your...Father? Gave you armaments?" She wasn't quite sure what to think about it.
"Nothing like that, Mama wasn't Mama then!" Alexa said with a nod, "And Mr Williams isn't my papa, he just made the original [Body] I had." Corrected the girl.
That...Didn't explain anything at all.
"The point is...That isn't relevant, the problem was...I wasn't supposed to make a weapon out of the crystal or tamper with primordial forces like [Mana]." Alexanders corrected, "My work was to make sure the [Thing] soaked energy, turned it into [Mana], and let the world [Advance]."
He rewinded the video and played it once more, this time, however...The Alexanders in the video used a remote machine to move the crystal, the shards fell to the floor and after a few seconds flew back and joined into the crystal. This in turn made it obvious he couldn't use them to experiment.
So the crystal got shelved into a hidden vault and forgotten...The video fast-forwarded a couple of centuries later and she could see the crystal pulsating with purple light, then saw how the crystal dissolved into light and spread over the world...
The camera panned out to an even older Alexanders who saw a blue screen in front of him and a smile, only for him to close his eyes and...Not open them again.
"And that was how it was supposed to be, I would then get a reward for helping the world [Advance] and be reborn somewhere else, with my memories and all. Have adventures, have fun...Do [Stuff] you know, the works." Alexanders shrugged...Yeah...[The Works].
"Instead I was born!" Alexa helpfully said, "And...That didn't happen, I got to meet Mama, got to have a twin brother too!" She happily said while hugging Alexanders.
Right...She looked just like him...
"And the world met his end because I tried to kickstart [Mana] before its time, forcing the awakening of mana by burning the [Lifeforce] of the planet..." The video rewinded back to his experiments...
The experiment of multiple weapons, all of them using shavings of the crystal, some more than others, one in the middle seemed to be more effective than the others...She somehow got the feeling that the little girl was that one.
"And in the end..." The video panned out to the exterior where the climate was changing, storms ravaged the world and portals opened in the sky dropping monsters... Then back to his hidden laboratory where the weapon had grown in power, reality seemed to bend around her...And soon enough she took a human figure...Its testing grounds turned into a garden with a tree house in the middle... She...She knew that garden...She knew that [Haven].
"The world ended...And..." Alexa said in a sad tone, the camera turning around showing people in the facility just...Disappearing.
One by one, whole laboratories full of people bursting into static that she knew was mana, no one seemed to mind, and only a few people seemed to even notice they were gone, a woman with blue hair, a man with black hair, and a permanent frown on his face, and orc wearing a cheap tuxedo, and a brown woman with a red cross on her back.
And finally...A blonde kid rushing into a gigantic metallic door with a cake in hand.
"Of course, we tried to save the world." Alexanders said, "We tried everything from reversing the process to accelerating it so it would finish before the last human died."
"But the only way to try and salvage the situation wasn't at our hands." Added Alexa.
The camera fast-forwarded once more, this time they were at the same laboratory she felt she knew, only fewer people were around, Alexanders was at one of the stations working hard as always.
The blue-haired woman, Vivian she was called...Why did she know that? Was working hard, her cold bitch face frowning even. Miriam next to her as always, the brown woman, the one that advocated for helping the world but still decided to accept work for the conglomerate, the hypocrite... She wasn't even going to question how she knew them anymore.
"And so we did our best...We tried the last thing hoping for the best." Alexanders said as the image showed the last two people in the laboratory (Besides him) on the verge of winking out of existence.
He raised his hands as they started discharging electricity and walked towards a yellow cat resting beside Miriam Eversoul, the woman who tried to give [Humanity] to Alexa...
"And then he Sacrificed me," Alexa said while the Alexanders in the video shot the energy he had collected toward the cat... And the video feed ended.
"And the world ended," Alexanders said, the last vestiges of the little girl disappeared as if she was never there.
"...You killed your sister?" She asked, tears streaking down her face.
"I tried to save the world...It didn't work, and I died anyway in the end." Alexanders said in a shrug.
"How could you...why....that..." She...She didn't know what to think about this.
The...Was he even sane to do something like that?
"And so we got offered a deal." He carried on as if nothing. "A new try at this thing called life...But I wanted nothing out of it."
"And then we arrive at you." A new voice spoke, this one...She couldn't quite identify.
She turned her attention towards it and found...A white silhouette, she couldn't see this person's face, its voice was neither male nor female...But at the same time was both.
"He didn't want anything from his previous life, so I was born. Nothing from his previous life, no memories, no talent, no blessings from [Fate]...Nothing." This androgynous figure said. "So everything that made him...[Him] got scrapped from his soul and sent to his dead world, he would naturally fade away, we gave him time to deal with his [Sin], to waste away...I helped to tailor his world so he would survive."
At this Alexanders smirked, "Not that it worked."
"...So if you were supposed to fade away...What are you doing here?" She asked, something had definitely not worked as intended.
"You happened... While you didn't have anything from him, your [Soul Vessel] was still one that had lived for almost two hundred years without the help of [Mana]. And it was the [Vessel] of someone that had mastered it in months...Without help. It was too important to waste away." The androgynous figure said, slowly morphing...It started to look oddly similar to the body of the girl she had seen threatening Alexanders before.
"They tried to send you into a world as a [Hero], even without my memories, the soul still remembered how cruel [Fate] can be to those they [Bless]. So you declined it and instead wanted to live a normal life...So they shoved you to be born to the woman that destroyed a world." Alexanders said with a smirk on his face. "That didn't work as intended either, we must be under a very peculiar star."
"The woman that was supposed to birth you ended traveling to a world with an uninitiated [Core], just like the one he was supposed to start." The girl that looked like the one that threatened Alexanders said, their only difference was the eyes, this one had blue eyes.
"That was fun, her body while [Blessed] wasn't sturdy enough to survive your birth. So she went to her family for help..." Alexanders smirked, showing another video, this one was of his old world ravaged and of his standing in front of the dead body of Alexa. "...She came to get help from me."
Then the video turned to a blonde woman with green eyes and a black-haired man speaking to him, the video turned to him operating on the woman while she screamed...Then the video turned black and white with only him and the woman staying normal and speaking.
"I gave her a deal, her daughter had quite the amount of mana in her body, and you...You had enough space in your soul." Alexanders said, "Your soul was quite compatible with mine too...Should have noticed it was my own soul."
The video turned to him forming a blue crystal with his mana and inserting it into the green-eyed woman's belly, and then...The world returned to normal, both once more standing as if nothing.
"The deal was simple enough, I would stabilize your [Soul], build a mana frame to keep it from spilling out since it seemed to want to grow out of control... And we didn't think a normal [Soul] could stand that much mana...And in exchange, she would allow me to piggyback a ride in her daughter's soul till we arrived in your world...There I would find a convenient vessel to inhabit for me and Alexa." Alexanders continued saying, showing plans for complex spells that would allow him to possess another person.
That...That was dark.
Also, it seemed Mother was quite ruthless too, wonder why they didn't include her Father in the talks?
"It didn't work." Said the other girl, she now was fully formed, the body of a girl that was at the very least 15 years old...Maybe 17 at most?
Blonde hair like Alexanders, but with blue eyes instead of yellow, she was dressed in a black school uniform with some gold finishers here and there, she seemed like the stereotypical overachiever girl who liked to dress up and pretend to be smarter than she was.
"His soul got stuck into yours without being able to exit, and so was the copy of Alexa he built using his own memories fished out of his already fragmented soul." The girl said glaring at Alexanders, "What worked was that he managed to wrestle some power from the [Core] of his dying planet, giving Alexa as much power as she had before, which allowed him to stabilize your [Soul]."
And at that, Alexanders shrank back "Yeah...sorry about that." He said with a grimace in his tone that didn't seem to be one of someone who achieved what he wanted.
Wasn't that the point? To stabilize her soul?
"You see, a normal person would have died when their soul held as much mana as yours...But you aren't normal." The blonde girl said, "Your [Vessel] was at the very least two to three times bigger than normal, from your life as Alexanders."
She said while summoning a whiteboard and drawing a rectangle and putting [Normal people] under it, then at the side another one three times as large and writing [Alexanders] under it.
"Of the [Vessel] one needs half of it for his [Soul] the other half is [Mana Allowance]," Alexanders said dividing into two the first rectangle. "This does not include what we call [Talent] into the equation, if you have it, then that takes space in the [Vessel] too."
"But Alexanders held at the very least three times that allowance, so even with the part for his [Soul], he still had quite the space for mana, that is one of the advantages of a [Fate's Blessed], that is why they are so [Lucky]" The blonde girl said.
"So..." She started speaking, "I could survive and didn't need whatever this brat did?"
The blonde girl smiled and nodded "Yes, you would survive. What he did was staunch your growth, only your mastery over mana could be used...And even that was replaced by his [Skill]." Alexanders at least seemed to be somewhat ashamed.
"And this takes us to the next problem." The girl said pointing at her face and moving a strand of black hair that had fallen on her face. "You weren't supposed to be born from that man."
Wait, she had hair!
YES!
Silky black hair even!
No wait, turn back.
"What?" She asked back, "Excuse me?"
What did she want from her, not like she could choose her parents...Well...Alexanders could have probably chosen her parents if he had taken the deal.
"Jack Ashcroft's Daughter was supposed to be Chloe Ashcroft, she was supposed to be [The Inheritor of the Akashic Records]." The blonde girl said pointing behind them.
There floating in a pod similar to the one she had seen before was a black-haired girl, sleeping without any care in the world.
She walked forward it and stood in front of it, in the reflection behind her to the left stood Alexanders in his kid form, he had stabilized into that form at some point, and to the right was the blonde girl with blue eyes.
And in the middle...an androgynous form with a single strand of black hair in her head, the rest of her hair looked like amorphous energy, changing form and length without stopping. Her body seemed to skew towards that of a female, but occasionally it shaped itself to that of a male...
A male or a very muscular woman.
And her eyes...Those changed colors from blue to green to black...to red...she didn't like it when they turned red.
"But instead your [Vessel] and [■■■■■■■■■■]...Sorry...Alexanders, made sure you were born. Had the attempt of Jack and Catherine failed, you would have been born to another man with your [Vessel] intact, grow as the daughter or son of Catherine into someone else...Instead [He] made sure you were born as their daughter...And this in turn made sure you took the [Title] from his owner, her owner in this case....And she..." The blonde girl pointed to the girl in the pod.
"[The World] made sure she was born nine months after you, to who should have been the wife of Jack, with the other half of what [The World] needed..." The blonde girl said, "...And while some problems were to be expected, this meant the plans got thrown out of order, some corrections were made here and there...And that meant some [Actors] got extra allowance so long the ending point was the one needed."
"And what does this matter to me?" She asked, this was interesting and all...But it didn't mean much to her.
It was nice knowing who her parents were...Who she was before...Or who he was before? Nah, she was sticking to being a girl.
"This is important because your body was taken away from you, your [Soul] is here." The blonde girl pointed at her amorphous body, "Your mind is here." And then pointed...She couldn't quite make out where she was pointing.
"But if nothing is done...Without a body your [Self] will waste away, and while I can survive without a body thanks to my skills..." Alexanders said while shrugging, while the blonde girl glared at him "...Right...You can't survive without a body, so...We need a solution or you will disappear."
Oh...
Yeah, that was a problem.
"But we have a solution!" Alexanders cheerfully said, and then pointed behind her.
"...Yes that is an option." The blonde girl nodded, even if she seemed to grimace at it.
She turned behind her but only saw the pod and the black-haired girl sleeping in it, nothing else was there. "What?" She asked.
"I mean, you have lived almost sixteen years with the mana of Jack coursing your veins as his daughter, granted the body wasn't the best one to hold it in place, but your [Vessel] is strong enough to hold it, part of the reason you have survived without a body this long..." Alexanders said while placing his hand in the pod.
She...Didn't like how he placed his hand in that pod, were had they got it from?
"And while it isn't...Good...Chloe's body is the other half that we are missing, her body is compatible enough already, she should be able to hold our [Soul Vessel]." The blonde girl continued saying.
"And what will happen to her if I do...whatever you are saying." She said with some trepidation.
"If two [Vessels] of the same size join, the body usually bursts apart if they can't fuse." Alexanders answered, "That will not happen in this case tho."
"That is good, what will happen then?" She asked somewhat relieved, she didn't want to burst apart after all.
"Your [Vessel] is stronger than hers," the blonde girl started speaking, "and while her body is sturdy enough to survive..."
"Her [Vessel] will be either squished into oblivion by the weight of our [Vessel] or she will be sublimated into us...We will not feel it either way." Alexanders added without a care in the world.
She...
"I..." Didn't like either option.
"Don't we have another option?" She asked to both.
The blonde seemed to think for a few seconds, only to grimace in the end, while Alexanders straight out said no with his head.
"How did you even get her body?" She asked while turning to the sleeping girl.
"Your mother sent it to us when she found me down here." Alexanders answered. "I was trying to patch your my soul into yours to keep some stability..." He said only to grimace and rub the back of his head," ...But she cut me out and sent this girl our way."
"And that is why I'm here," The blonde girl said while hitting the back of Alexanders head, "To make sure you understand your options, Mother made sure you could survive under your own terms, even if she didn't know our full story."
So...She could steal the body of this girl...She didn't know her...Well, she probably did and didn't remember. Or she could allow Alexanders to patch himself into her soul to try and find another body?
Or...What was the blonde's option?
"And what is your suggestion?" She asked to the blonde.
She only smiled as if she had been waiting for that question, "Why it's quite easy...We wake Chloe, explain everything, and let her decide."
That...That was the stupidest idea she had ever heard.
"Fair enough, wake the girl!" But she liked it, it would take the guilt out of her if nothing else...
There is no way she accepted the plan of Alexanders, so that would mean they would go by Alexanders plan after Chloe rejected them...
Now she only needed to make sure to prevent Alexanders to affect her too much when he patched himself into her soul, that would suck...But it is better than dying right?
She was surrounded by darkness, and even trying to look down only made this point more obvious, darkness everywhere, she couldn't even see her own hands... And couldn't feel them either. She felt as if she had lost something important, something that was important...What was it?
Trying to think back on it she couldn't seem to remember, she only knew that she was floating in the void and couldn't feel nor see anything, she was tired...So tired...And the darkness was so comfortable...
"Are you enjoying yourself?" Asked a voice, male, deep, older.
She tried to search for it but didn't find it, it was the voice of someone older, aged and serious, but with a faint tone of mischievousness, like the voice of a grandparent playing a joke with some of his grandchildren.
"Where are you, who are you?" She asked to the void, trying to turn her head...But not quite achieving it...
Why?
She tried to touch her face but...Couldn't feel it, she couldn't even be sure her hands were moving...Did she have hands even? Did she have a head?
"Who am I? Who are [You]?" Asked back the voice.
Oh right, she had to start with introductions, that was what they had taught him in his Etiquette lessons...
Who was she?
"I'm... ■■■■■■■■■." She tried to say only for weird noises to come out of her mouth. "What?"
And after trying to process it she once again said "I'm ■■■■■■■■■■." But even trying to say it again nothing came.
"Are you sure? You said two different things there." Said the voice again.
She did?
Trying to recount it, somehow the second time had an extra character, "The ■ character isn't quite normal nor is it needed at the end, even if we liked how it made our name [Special]." The male voice said with a smirk on his face.
How did she know he had a smirk? Who was that man?
"I said my name and you understood it, so who are you?" She asked back to the voice, her voice had some snark on it, but she didn't mind it, the manner lessons never quite stuck to him anyway.
"I'm...The endpoint of a Scion, the fruit of a life full of strife..." Started recounting the older man's voice, "...I'm the single reason a world fell into crisis in my search for the [Forbidden truth]...The reason a world met its end...I'm..." His voice trailed off, full of regrets as if he was trying to find the right words.
"An Old Man that stuck his face in matters that he shouldn't." Came a second voice, this one of a man younger, not in his twilight years, but not quite young.
His was full of vigor and ambition, and somehow, she knew the older man had disappeared when this one came, "I'm here to try and help you in your time of need my lovely and [stupid] girl." Said the new voice.
He was annoying.
"And who are you supposed to be?" She asked back, "Do I need to say my name again?"
"Hah!" Laughed back this new person, "Nah, that isn't needed, [We] know who you are more than you do."
Somehow, that annoyed her quite deeply, who was this person? And the other one?
Also, he said We as if more people were around. But she couldn't see anything, she couldn't feel anything...She wasn't even sure how she was hearing them or speaking to them, she couldn't even feel her body!
Was she standing? On the floor? Wha....
"[Hey!]" Screamed the new voice while slapping her.
Rude!
The pain on her cheek stings quite deeply!
Who even slaps a girl?
Did he have no shame?!?
No wait...Pain?
"Snap out of it, don't think too deeply, just focus on [Here]." Said the new voice.
How...
She tried to fling her hand and slap herself but felt nothing, "How did you do that?" She asked, her voice filled with doubt and...Hope.
"What? Slap you?" Asked back with mirth this man. "Ain't you a kinky one."
Uuugh...Males.
"Didn't think we would turn into a M...Always thought we were more of a S, to be honest..." Mused the man.
"You know what I mean..."She snarked back at him, so rude.
"We always were good at the self-loathing and hurting thing...We were raised as slaves after all..." What?
She was a slave? She was raised as a slave? That...Didn't feel right...She didn't have memories of being a slave...No wait, she didn't have any memory!
How? When? What?
"[Focus ■■■■■■■■■!]" The thunderous voice of the man came.
"You missed a ■." She said, a joking tone in her voice.
"No, I didn't. You used the wrong name back then, you aren't ■■■■■■■■■■, not anymore anyway..."He answered back, somehow she could get the meaning of how that name was different. "You could if you wanted..." He laughed back at the end
"We are running out of time here." A third voice came, strangling the laugh of the man.
This one sounded...Younger, almost as old as she...How could she know their age?
"What is happening?" She asked, still trying to get her bearings.
These...People...Seemed to help her stabilize her mood, somehow she could feel herself being more...[Her].
"Your soul, your mind, and your body got separated." Said the male teen, she could feel his presence, she could smell him even.
He smelled like Oozone after a thunder struck down on a rainy night.
"Someone tried to take over your soul in a moment of weakness, so we severed the connection, our [Memories] are leaking back into the [Soulscape]." He said in a soft tone he felt...Like sadness, and defeat, the feeling she got out of him was of someone whose dreams were almost crushed but he still stuck to them in hopes of victory.
"Our memory? Are your memories, the memories of the previous man, and those of the old man merging with mine?" She wondered aloud.
That...Would be a problem, what was she supposed to do with memories of men?
She didn't want to know about their memories!
"Not quite..." Answered back the other teenager, "[We] aren't at that point, we could, of course, we could be one again...If you want to."
Was...was he hitting on her?
"I'm not... Why are you all so narcissistic?" Said a new voice, this one was quite high pitched, he sounded like a kid.
A kid who tried to put up a brave front but was...Scared?
"No, we aren't hitting on you." Said the voice of the new kid, he was a blonde kid with yellow eyes.
Wait, she can see!
A quick look down and...She couldn't see herself.
"Why can I see you, but not myself?" She asked the kid.
"I know who [I am]. And as such I can project myself this deep within the soul." He answered back, "Even if unstable." Added back the voice of the first person she spoke to.
And then, instead of a kid was the figure of an old man...Only in name, his gait was that of a soldier, his face even with some wrinkles on it was full of life, and while he had some white in his head, it was more yellowy silver than straight white.
Yeah, you aren't supposed to look that good in old age, how was someone almost two centuries old that well-preserved?
"Why thank you, I make a good effort to keep my good looks." Smirked the old man while tipping his imaginary hat.
Did...Did he read her thoughts?
"No, we can't read thoughts, but we keep some of the same traits, some things are too embedded into our [Soul]." Said the voice of the teenager to her left, she turned her attention there...
And sure enough, he looked around her age, but his eyes weren't yellow but...Blue?
The old man...what colors had been his eyes?
She tried to remember him, but she could only picture the face of the teenager, even though an old man had been there...
"Don't overwork your nonexistent brain." The kid spoke once more.
And looking back...The teenager was no more.
"What is happening?" She asked once more, hadn't she asked this before?
"Your life was in danger and we took the only option available..."Said the kid while summoning a blue screen.
In it was the image of a blonde girl with red eyes and black veins in her body speaking with the Teenager from before, she couldn't hear them speaking, but the face of the teenager told her enough.
He was being threatened...Behind him stood a series of cylinders, she [Knew] what they were and for whom. She knew that the old man had used the first cylinder to stave off time, to survive longer...To make sure everything was in order in...in...
"In our soul." Answered back the kid.
Right, he had been stabilizing her soul from the moment she was born...
"How do I know stuff about before I was born?" She asked back to the kid.
"We were there." Answered back the kid with a shrug.
"Of course, I was there! I was in my mother's belly! I'm asking how I know stuff I shouldn't know!" She was getting annoyed at this person.
"We are you." The kid said as if it was the most obvious thing.
"You are in secret a girl?" She said back in a deadpan tone, he was one ugly girl...Or a tomboy? He didn't look like a tomboy, usually, tomboys are cute. And he wasn't cute, at all.
"...No, I'm male, do you want to check?" He asked back.
"No thank you." She quickly said, so rude.
"What I mean is...Look, I was what you could refer to as...Someone blessed with an important mission. If you think in simpler terms...I was [Destinied] to do something." He started saying.
Was he bad in the head?
"I was born at the bottom of the trash can, less than a slave and more like expendable meat than human...But I got lucky, managed to climb the ranks, managed to prove I [Deserved better]." He said with fire in his eyes.
"I raised my stock, I stopped being [Slave 105] and earned [My Name] I wasn't just Alexander, I was [■■■■■■■■■■]!" He was really getting into it.
"You added one extra character there." She helpfully said. "I counted them Alexander and ■■■■■■■■■■ have different numbers of characters, one has nine and the other has ten."
He in turn only glared at her and answered "We like the extra S at the end, makes us different from the rabble." Yikes, ego much?
"Not relevant, we climbed, we fought...And then...We found out what made us special, there was an entity in our world...Something that wanted to [Grow] and it had [Choosen] us...It chose me." He summoned once more the blue screen and on it was...Another blue screen, this one seemed...Primitive.
While the one he summoned was well detailed and could pass up as a holopad, the one inside of it, the picture of that...Was like a crystal cut from a cave...Natural crystal turned into a mirror.
"It was thanks to this [Thing] blessing we could make the best of our situation, we...I...Was [Lucky]" Alexander(s) said.
"Hah? Like...You had good luck? That's it?" She was baffled, was this kid okay? Maybe he needed a nap or something?
"You don't understand...I was sent into the war...But was never wounded, no matter how grisly the fight was...I would never run out of bullets, and when I was in danger someone else would stumble in front of me, turning into a shield...If I was moved to another theatre...My previous one would be blown to kingdom come..." He grimaced while showing pictures of him in uniform fighting in a war..."I was [Really Lucky]" Alexanders said again.
"That's...convenient." Was all she could say, was that even possible?
That sounded more like some god was coddling him than anything.
"That is a good way to put it yes. I was protected by [Fate] and only needed to find what my mission was...It took me five minutes to find out what it was since the only thing special I had was my heritage." Alexanders moved his presentation to the next, the image of an eagle with a pergamine on his claws extending his wings as if it was flying...Or landing, hard to tell on a statue.
"Since our clan's mission was the keeping and preserving of knowledge, I climbed the ranks and turned it into profit, can't make bad investments if [Fate] wants me to succeed...So I built a conglomerate and stuck my name to it (Or my last name anyway)." And like that, the story showed the image of the adult blonde form of this kid, shaking hands with the president of the United...
"Wait, why do I know he is the president? That ain't mine...Actually, do I have one?" She asked, trying to remember...Somehow...She didn't quite have memories of a president, she remembered her father was more important than him...Was that the reason?
"Getting there," The kid said, "So...We built the conglomerate and studied the crystal...Then...I made a little itty bitty of ...[Misunderstanding]."
The presentation changed to the image of him cutting a part of a humongous purple crystal, he was dressed in a full scientist setting in a laboratory...That seemed nostalgic.
And then...The recording showed him getting cut by one of the crystal's shards and some of his blood dropping on it, "And so..." He started speaking.
" I WAS BORN!" Came the voice of a little girl, she was a blonde one with blue eyes like...Her?
"Oh Hello Alexa." She said without thinking, "...Why do I know her name?"
Was the first thing she said without even thinking about it, "That shard got contaminated with my genetic information, so the first thing we tried to do was build a body for it...We put our top geneticist to build the blueprint using me as the base..." Continued speaking Alexanders.
"Mama makes the best bodies!" The little girl said, "But mister pig wanted a weapon..."
"And our weapon's expert made a [Core] for a bioweapon since we did need some money to fund the thing," Alexanders said after it.
"So your...Mother? Made the body of a little girl...And your...Father? Gave you armaments?" She wasn't quite sure what to think about it.
"Nothing like that, Mama wasn't Mama then!" Alexa said with a nod, "And Mr Williams isn't my papa, he just made the original [Body] I had." Corrected the girl.
That...Didn't explain anything at all.
"The point is...That isn't relevant, the problem was...I wasn't supposed to make a weapon out of the crystal or tamper with primordial forces like [Mana]." Alexanders corrected, "My work was to make sure the [Thing] soaked energy, turned it into [Mana], and let the world [Advance]."
He rewinded the video and played it once more, this time, however...The Alexanders in the video used a remote machine to move the crystal, the shards fell to the floor and after a few seconds flew back and joined into the crystal. This in turn made it obvious he couldn't use them to experiment.
So the crystal got shelved into a hidden vault and forgotten...The video fast-forwarded a couple of centuries later and she could see the crystal pulsating with purple light, then saw how the crystal dissolved into light and spread over the world...
The camera panned out to an even older Alexanders who saw a blue screen in front of him and a smile, only for him to close his eyes and...Not open them again.
"And that was how it was supposed to be, I would then get a reward for helping the world [Advance] and be reborn somewhere else, with my memories and all. Have adventures, have fun...Do [Stuff] you know, the works." Alexanders shrugged...Yeah...[The Works].
"Instead I was born!" Alexa helpfully said, "And...That didn't happen, I got to meet Mama, got to have a twin brother too!" She happily said while hugging Alexanders.
Right...She looked just like him...
"And the world met his end because I tried to kickstart [Mana] before its time, forcing the awakening of mana by burning the [Lifeforce] of the planet..." The video rewinded back to his experiments...
The experiment of multiple weapons, all of them using shavings of the crystal, some more than others, one in the middle seemed to be more effective than the others...She somehow got the feeling that the little girl was that one.
"And in the end..." The video panned out to the exterior where the climate was changing, storms ravaged the world and portals opened in the sky dropping monsters... Then back to his hidden laboratory where the weapon had grown in power, reality seemed to bend around her...And soon enough she took a human figure...Its testing grounds turned into a garden with a tree house in the middle... She...She knew that garden...She knew that [Haven].
"The world ended...And..." Alexa said in a sad tone, the camera turning around showing people in the facility just...Disappearing.
One by one, whole laboratories full of people bursting into static that she knew was mana, no one seemed to mind, and only a few people seemed to even notice they were gone, a woman with blue hair, a man with black hair, and a permanent frown on his face, and orc wearing a cheap tuxedo, and a brown woman with a red cross on her back.
And finally...A blonde kid rushing into a gigantic metallic door with a cake in hand.
"Of course, we tried to save the world." Alexanders said, "We tried everything from reversing the process to accelerating it so it would finish before the last human died."
"But the only way to try and salvage the situation wasn't at our hands." Added Alexa.
The camera fast-forwarded once more, this time they were at the same laboratory she felt she knew, only fewer people were around, Alexanders was at one of the stations working hard as always.
The blue-haired woman, Vivian she was called...Why did she know that? Was working hard, her cold bitch face frowning even. Miriam next to her as always, the brown woman, the one that advocated for helping the world but still decided to accept work for the conglomerate, the hypocrite... She wasn't even going to question how she knew them anymore.
"And so we did our best...We tried the last thing hoping for the best." Alexanders said as the image showed the last two people in the laboratory (Besides him) on the verge of winking out of existence.
He raised his hands as they started discharging electricity and walked towards a yellow cat resting beside Miriam Eversoul, the woman who tried to give [Humanity] to Alexa...
"And then he Sacrificed me," Alexa said while the Alexanders in the video shot the energy he had collected toward the cat... And the video feed ended.
"And the world ended," Alexanders said, the last vestiges of the little girl disappeared as if she was never there.
"...You killed your sister?" She asked, tears streaking down her face.
"I tried to save the world...It didn't work, and I died anyway in the end." Alexanders said in a shrug.
"How could you...why....that..." She...She didn't know what to think about this.
The...Was he even sane to do something like that?
"And so we got offered a deal." He carried on as if nothing. "A new try at this thing called life...But I wanted nothing out of it."
"And then we arrive at you." A new voice spoke, this one...She couldn't quite identify.
She turned her attention towards it and found...A white silhouette, she couldn't see this person's face, its voice was neither male nor female...But at the same time was both.
"He didn't want anything from his previous life, so I was born. Nothing from his previous life, no memories, no talent, no blessings from [Fate]...Nothing." This androgynous figure said. "So everything that made him...[Him] got scrapped from his soul and sent to his dead world, he would naturally fade away, we gave him time to deal with his [Sin], to waste away...I helped to tailor his world so he would survive."
At this Alexanders smirked, "Not that it worked."
"...So if you were supposed to fade away...What are you doing here?" She asked, something had definitely not worked as intended.
"You happened... While you didn't have anything from him, your [Soul Vessel] was still one that had lived for almost two hundred years without the help of [Mana]. And it was the [Vessel] of someone that had mastered it in months...Without help. It was too important to waste away." The androgynous figure said, slowly morphing...It started to look oddly similar to the body of the girl she had seen threatening Alexanders before.
"They tried to send you into a world as a [Hero], even without my memories, the soul still remembered how cruel [Fate] can be to those they [Bless]. So you declined it and instead wanted to live a normal life...So they shoved you to be born to the woman that destroyed a world." Alexanders said with a smirk on his face. "That didn't work as intended either, we must be under a very peculiar star."
"The woman that was supposed to birth you ended traveling to a world with an uninitiated [Core], just like the one he was supposed to start." The girl that looked like the one that threatened Alexanders said, their only difference was the eyes, this one had blue eyes.
"That was fun, her body while [Blessed] wasn't sturdy enough to survive your birth. So she went to her family for help..." Alexanders smirked, showing another video, this one was of his old world ravaged and of his standing in front of the dead body of Alexa. "...She came to get help from me."
Then the video turned to a blonde woman with green eyes and a black-haired man speaking to him, the video turned to him operating on the woman while she screamed...Then the video turned black and white with only him and the woman staying normal and speaking.
"I gave her a deal, her daughter had quite the amount of mana in her body, and you...You had enough space in your soul." Alexanders said, "Your soul was quite compatible with mine too...Should have noticed it was my own soul."
The video turned to him forming a blue crystal with his mana and inserting it into the green-eyed woman's belly, and then...The world returned to normal, both once more standing as if nothing.
"The deal was simple enough, I would stabilize your [Soul], build a mana frame to keep it from spilling out since it seemed to want to grow out of control... And we didn't think a normal [Soul] could stand that much mana...And in exchange, she would allow me to piggyback a ride in her daughter's soul till we arrived in your world...There I would find a convenient vessel to inhabit for me and Alexa." Alexanders continued saying, showing plans for complex spells that would allow him to possess another person.
That...That was dark.
Also, it seemed Mother was quite ruthless too, wonder why they didn't include her Father in the talks?
"It didn't work." Said the other girl, she now was fully formed, the body of a girl that was at the very least 15 years old...Maybe 17 at most?
Blonde hair like Alexanders, but with blue eyes instead of yellow, she was dressed in a black school uniform with some gold finishers here and there, she seemed like the stereotypical overachiever girl who liked to dress up and pretend to be smarter than she was.
"His soul got stuck into yours without being able to exit, and so was the copy of Alexa he built using his own memories fished out of his already fragmented soul." The girl said glaring at Alexanders, "What worked was that he managed to wrestle some power from the [Core] of his dying planet, giving Alexa as much power as she had before, which allowed him to stabilize your [Soul]."
And at that, Alexanders shrank back "Yeah...sorry about that." He said with a grimace in his tone that didn't seem to be one of someone who achieved what he wanted.
Wasn't that the point? To stabilize her soul?
"You see, a normal person would have died when their soul held as much mana as yours...But you aren't normal." The blonde girl said, "Your [Vessel] was at the very least two to three times bigger than normal, from your life as Alexanders."
She said while summoning a whiteboard and drawing a rectangle and putting [Normal people] under it, then at the side another one three times as large and writing [Alexanders] under it.
"Of the [Vessel] one needs half of it for his [Soul] the other half is [Mana Allowance]," Alexanders said dividing into two the first rectangle. "This does not include what we call [Talent] into the equation, if you have it, then that takes space in the [Vessel] too."
"But Alexanders held at the very least three times that allowance, so even with the part for his [Soul], he still had quite the space for mana, that is one of the advantages of a [Fate's Blessed], that is why they are so [Lucky]" The blonde girl said.
"So..." She started speaking, "I could survive and didn't need whatever this brat did?"
The blonde girl smiled and nodded "Yes, you would survive. What he did was staunch your growth, only your mastery over mana could be used...And even that was replaced by his [Skill]." Alexanders at least seemed to be somewhat ashamed.
"And this takes us to the next problem." The girl said pointing at her face and moving a strand of black hair that had fallen on her face. "You weren't supposed to be born from that man."
Wait, she had hair!
YES!
Silky black hair even!
No wait, turn back.
"What?" She asked back, "Excuse me?"
What did she want from her, not like she could choose her parents...Well...Alexanders could have probably chosen her parents if he had taken the deal.
"Jack Ashcroft's Daughter was supposed to be Chloe Ashcroft, she was supposed to be [The Inheritor of the Akashic Records]." The blonde girl said pointing behind them.
There floating in a pod similar to the one she had seen before was a black-haired girl, sleeping without any care in the world.
She walked forward it and stood in front of it, in the reflection behind her to the left stood Alexanders in his kid form, he had stabilized into that form at some point, and to the right was the blonde girl with blue eyes.
And in the middle...an androgynous form with a single strand of black hair in her head, the rest of her hair looked like amorphous energy, changing form and length without stopping. Her body seemed to skew towards that of a female, but occasionally it shaped itself to that of a male...
A male or a very muscular woman.
And her eyes...Those changed colors from blue to green to black...to red...she didn't like it when they turned red.
"But instead your [Vessel] and [■■■■■■■■■■]...Sorry...Alexanders, made sure you were born. Had the attempt of Jack and Catherine failed, you would have been born to another man with your [Vessel] intact, grow as the daughter or son of Catherine into someone else...Instead [He] made sure you were born as their daughter...And this in turn made sure you took the [Title] from his owner, her owner in this case....And she..." The blonde girl pointed to the girl in the pod.
"[The World] made sure she was born nine months after you, to who should have been the wife of Jack, with the other half of what [The World] needed..." The blonde girl said, "...And while some problems were to be expected, this meant the plans got thrown out of order, some corrections were made here and there...And that meant some [Actors] got extra allowance so long the ending point was the one needed."
"And what does this matter to me?" She asked, this was interesting and all...But it didn't mean much to her.
It was nice knowing who her parents were...Who she was before...Or who he was before? Nah, she was sticking to being a girl.
"This is important because your body was taken away from you, your [Soul] is here." The blonde girl pointed at her amorphous body, "Your mind is here." And then pointed...She couldn't quite make out where she was pointing.
"But if nothing is done...Without a body your [Self] will waste away, and while I can survive without a body thanks to my skills..." Alexanders said while shrugging, while the blonde girl glared at him "...Right...You can't survive without a body, so...We need a solution or you will disappear."
Oh...
Yeah, that was a problem.
"But we have a solution!" Alexanders cheerfully said, and then pointed behind her.
"...Yes that is an option." The blonde girl nodded, even if she seemed to grimace at it.
She turned behind her but only saw the pod and the black-haired girl sleeping in it, nothing else was there. "What?" She asked.
"I mean, you have lived almost sixteen years with the mana of Jack coursing your veins as his daughter, granted the body wasn't the best one to hold it in place, but your [Vessel] is strong enough to hold it, part of the reason you have survived without a body this long..." Alexanders said while placing his hand in the pod.
She...Didn't like how he placed his hand in that pod, were had they got it from?
"And while it isn't...Good...Chloe's body is the other half that we are missing, her body is compatible enough already, she should be able to hold our [Soul Vessel]." The blonde girl continued saying.
"And what will happen to her if I do...whatever you are saying." She said with some trepidation.
"If two [Vessels] of the same size join, the body usually bursts apart if they can't fuse." Alexanders answered, "That will not happen in this case tho."
"That is good, what will happen then?" She asked somewhat relieved, she didn't want to burst apart after all.
"Your [Vessel] is stronger than hers," the blonde girl started speaking, "and while her body is sturdy enough to survive..."
"Her [Vessel] will be either squished into oblivion by the weight of our [Vessel] or she will be sublimated into us...We will not feel it either way." Alexanders added without a care in the world.
She...
"I..." Didn't like either option.
"Don't we have another option?" She asked to both.
The blonde seemed to think for a few seconds, only to grimace in the end, while Alexanders straight out said no with his head.
"How did you even get her body?" She asked while turning to the sleeping girl.
"Your mother sent it to us when she found me down here." Alexanders answered. "I was trying to patch your my soul into yours to keep some stability..." He said only to grimace and rub the back of his head," ...But she cut me out and sent this girl our way."
"And that is why I'm here," The blonde girl said while hitting the back of Alexanders head, "To make sure you understand your options, Mother made sure you could survive under your own terms, even if she didn't know our full story."
So...She could steal the body of this girl...She didn't know her...Well, she probably did and didn't remember. Or she could allow Alexanders to patch himself into her soul to try and find another body?
Or...What was the blonde's option?
"And what is your suggestion?" She asked to the blonde.
She only smiled as if she had been waiting for that question, "Why it's quite easy...We wake Chloe, explain everything, and let her decide."
That...That was the stupidest idea she had ever heard.
"Fair enough, wake the girl!" But she liked it, it would take the guilt out of her if nothing else...
There is no way she accepted the plan of Alexanders, so that would mean they would go by Alexanders plan after Chloe rejected them...
Now she only needed to make sure to prevent Alexanders to affect her too much when he patched himself into her soul, that would suck...But it is better than dying right?
